Port Adelaide Monitors the 'neighbourhood watch' for live exports

CONCERN for animals in the live export trade prompted three South Australian women to form their own kind of neighbourhood watch group.

Now they have won a grant from Sydney-based animal protection organisation Voiceless to help film and document live export ships loading from Port Adelaide.

After working tirelessly for more than a year with limited equipment, the group which calls itself Port Adelaide Monitors says the $7800 grant will make a big difference.

Rebekah Eyers from Unley said the group came together in spring last year, following the Al Messilah incident in which 67,000 sheep were stranded at Outer Harbour.

People came from all over Adelaide to witness the animal welfare disaster unfold and Ms Eyers, a PhD student of animal law at Griffith University, met Deb Bell from Tea Tree Gully and Raelene Govett from Semaphore.

"All of us have jobs, studies and families - we're just regular people who find it hard to find the time," Ms Eyers said. "We're certainly not the stereotype that the industry people talk about.

"I find that so annoying you know, 'Go and get a job'.

'Have they not noticed yet that this is middle Australia holding up their hand and going, 'Hey our Government is failing in its duty of care to these animals' and we say, 'No, not in our name'."

More than 250,000 live sheep were exported from South Australia in the past financial year, with ships coming and going from the port on a monthly basis.

Australian Bureau of Statistics trade data from the 2011-12 financial year reveals a total of 257,934 live sheep from SA, including 78,423 to Qatar, 71,211 to Turkey, 54,089 to Kuwait and 43,475 to Jordan.

Last week the Port Adelaide Enfield Council agreed to lobby state and federal governments to ban live animal exports. Mayor Gary Johanson said it was a major concern for ratepayers.

"The smell of a fully loaded sheep ship is just unbelievable," he said. "It must be a terrible thing for those animals.

"We must have some form of humanity because these poor animals cannot speak up for themselves.

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